


Naming Conventions

by ERNest



Category: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Related Fandoms, Wonderland: A New Alice - Murphy/Boyd/Wildhorn
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Names, Wanton Portmanteaus, Words
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-08
Updated: 2013-06-08
Packaged: 2017-12-14 07:49:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/834450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ERNest/pseuds/ERNest
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On the importance of the specificity of language.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Irreversible Binomials

“Amazing!” She purrs, “I had no idea that there was an annual gathering for the deliverance of titles. How ever did you find out about this?”  
He looks at her almost scathingly. “I’m part of the Leporidae family. Word gets around quick and even little pictures have big ears. Besides, you should know by now. I know everything.”  
“Almost everything,” she teases. “What’s the word for learning that everyone else in the world has a whole separate life that you will never come close to touching, even if you manage to graze the edges of existence?” He looks at her peculiarly, and she edits. “I hear some people have that problem. Not me. Other people.”  
“Uh huh,” he says skeptically. “Well, I’m guessing that we’ll find it in the obscure sorrows booth.” They stumble through tristesse, melancholia, kuebiko and epicaricacy before they discover that the feeling she describes is called sonder and that their collective memory sprawls like an anthill – or a rabbit hole, he reminds her.  
“Giving a name to a thing makes it easier to hold onto and somehow less daunting,” she observes, pleased with the discovery. “Oh! Morris, make sure that the rewriting machine removes names. Except – if you could keep the tiniest hope that maybe there used to be one?”  
“Oh, I like the way you think.”  
They make their way through the hall of fear and laugh together at all the new ideas it gives them for torture methodology. He slips his hand into hers just as they pass the placard for Aphenphosmphobia and she tenses a bit, but doesn’t tell him to stop.  
“Why is the word for the fear of long words so obscenely long?”  
“Oh, I don’t know,” she says as she picks a pocket walking by, “Dramatic irony?”  
“Probably.”  
“Thank you,” she tells him, “for bringing me here.”  
“Nothing but the best.”  
Later they sit on the grass outside of the Portmanteau Workshop in a peaceful sort of silence, which she gently breaks. “So what’s the berstest thing you’ve ever done, Morris?”  
He only hesitates a moment and takes a fragile breath to steady himself. “This,” he says, and then leans over to kiss her.  
(She wonders what name she should give to a stomach that seems to be plummeting in all directions at once.)


	2. Context-Dependent

They lie in the grass and look up at the clouds. She feels his hand an inch or two away from her own and giggles at the sensation of him constantly drumming the ground with his fingers. She wonders if he’s always this high-tension just because he’s a Hare or if he’s only like this when he’s around her. It’s silly to think she’s that special, but he makes her feel like she might be. It would be so easy to reach over to grab his hand so it doesn’t need to be in motion all the time. Instead, she props herself up on an elbow and looks over at him. “So, what’s the berstest thing you’ve ever done, Morris?”


End file.
